Ten of the Best!

Ravenhill bade a fond farewell to one of its favourite sons last night. One of the biggest crowds of recent months turned out to say goodbye to the Humph in appreciation of ten years of dedication to Ulster and Ireland. During that time David steered Ulster to a Celtic Cup win in 2003, snatched the 2006 Celtic league championship with a last minute drop goal and of course he captained the team to that magnificent 1999 Heineken Cup win.

This season had been a sorry affair for Humphreys as he has struggled with an Achilles tendon injury for most of it and many, including the man himself, believed he wouldn’t be fit to play a competitive match again. But everyone wanted to see him take the field for one last time as a fitting end to a fantastic career and with the help of the medical team and the co-operation of the coaching staff Dr David was named as the starting out-half for the last game of the season against Cardiff.

As he ran out onto the pitch accompanied by his children all of Ravenhill stood, cheered and clapped in honour of their hero.

Ulster kicked off and were immediately into the Cardiff half and pressing searching for a break in their defence but as has been the story so often of late it was a counter-attack against the run of play that led to the first score with Cardiff making rapid progress up the field for Maa Molitika to break the final tackle and put Cardiff 0-7 ahead with five minutes gone. A few minutes later it was time for the second standing ovation of the night as Humphreys, who had been giving everything he had for the cause, had to throw in the towel and limp off with a recurrence of his leg injury. The Humph had lasted barely ten minutes in the number ten position. But the whole ground stood and clapped as he left the field of play for the final time.

Paddy Wallace was brought on to replace him and within minutes a beautifully timed pass to Andy Trimble saw Andy taking the ball at speed and crashing through the Cardiff defence linking up with Tommy Bowe to score Ulster’s first points on the night.. Paddy missed with the conversion attempt but Ulster seemed to have got their act together at last.

Some stout Ulster defending kept Cardiff at bay as they pressed the Ulster line for a sustained period and as injury time counted down Wallace found Simon Danielli in a bit of space and Danielli on a charge manages to break through three tacklers to make a score out wide and put Ulster in the lead for the first time. Paddy made the tough conversion from out wide and the ref called time on the first half.

If the crowd were starting to feel as if Ulster had the game under control and the win in their sights it was all spoiled soon after the restart. An opportunistic kick ahead of a loose ball had the Cardiff winger Roger Davis outpacing the Ulster defence to dive on the ball for a relatively easy seven pointer and a few minutes later, to add insult to injury, more slack defending had Cardiff second-row James Down making the short stroll over the Ulster line to extend their lead.

Ulster hadn’t quite given up though and stole a scrum against the head on the Cardiff line for Paddy Wallace to pull a score back. Unfortunately he was unable to make the conversion and Ulster still trailed 17-19.

A charge-down from Matt McCullough close to the Cardiff line briefly gave the home crowd hope but Cardiff won the chase to touch down and were able to clear their lines form the 22 drop-out. As the clock wound Down Maa Molitika delivered the hammer-blow to Ulster’s hopes when he broke through Ulster’s porous defence for a converted score which put Cardiff in a safe 9 point lead.

This was definitely not the end that the crowd had wanted to the season from hell. But to their credit many of the players stayed out on the pitch for ages after the final whistle signing autographs, chatting to the fans and generally making themselves accessible to the kids.

We have seen the last off Davy Humphreys and Simon Best this season and are also saying farewell to Harrison, Bowe, Wilson, McMillan, Campbell and Neil Best (to name but a few of the more influential players). We probably won’t see too many of them in an Ulster shirt again either.

Matt Williams didn’t miss and hit the wall when he put the blame for the loss firmly down to poor defence and atrocious tackling. Lets hope that in the summer break he can turn this ship around with an injection of some renewed belief, some skills development and the promised injection of new talent.

Some things were better last night. Isaac sees to have been told to stop kicking ball away and the box-kick was little used last night. Paddy was more composed and was showing off some of the attacking skills of a decent out-half finding his backs in space and putting them through gaps to make a decent bit of ground. Our Tackling and general defence left a lot to be desired though and was probably the source of our downfall.

Finally, if anyone does read this, I’d like to make a plea from the heart. The Magners League has come a long way in the past few years and the three unions seem to be taking it more seriously. However the standard of refereeing is not up to the mark for a fully professional league. The total number of spectators through the gates has been growing year on year and it is time to invest some of that money wisely. This league needs to employ professional referees from outside the three unions if necessary to oversee the games. Too many poor decisions are spoiling the game and whether they are changing the outcome of matches or not is immaterial. They are spoiling the credibility of the Magners league as being of similar standing to the TOP14 or the Guinness Premiership, and until this is addressed we will always be a second class league.

Ulster:15. Mark Bartholomeusz 14. Tommy Bowe 13. Andrew Trimble 12. Rob Dewey 11. Simon Danielli 10. David Humphreys 9. Isaac Boss 1. Bryan Young 2. Rory Best 3. Tom Court 4. Justin Harrison 5. Ryan Caldwell 6. Stephen Ferris 7. David Pollock 8. Roger Wilson
Replacements: 16. Nigel Brady 17. Justin Fitzpatrick 18. Matt McCullough 19. Neil Best 20. Paul Marshall 21. Paddy Wallace 22. Niall O'Connor

Cardiff Blues: 15. Nick Macleod 14. Roger Davies 13. Marc Stcherbina 12. Dafydd Hewitt 11. Leigh Halfpenny 10. Nick Robinson 9. Richie Rees 1. Taufa'ao Filise 2. Gareth Williams 3. Gary Powell 4. Bradley Davies 5. Scott Morgan 6. Maama Molitika 7. Ben White 8. Xavier Rush
Replacements: 16. John Yapp 17. T.Rhys Thomas 18. James Down 19. Mark Lewis 20. Rhys Shellard 21. Jason Spice 22. David Flanagan

Referee: Andrew Macpherson (Scotland)